The Sign Poster 1742

Anne Claude Philippe Caylus created "The Sign Poster," an etching, sometime around 1742. Caylus was a man of the court, a count, but he was also an engraver, antiquarian, and art critic during the height of the French Rococo. Here, we see a man from behind, who is putting up a sign, or “avis”, on a wall. The sign advertises prints called "Studies taken from the lower classes or the cries of Paris". What’s striking is the depiction of labor and the marketing of images of the working class to a presumably bourgeois audience. The image raises questions about the gaze and class relations. Is this sign poster part of the “bas peuple” or is he simply contracted to do this work? Caylus’s image invites us to consider the intersections of labor, representation, and social class in 18th-century Paris, while also reminding us of the power dynamics inherent in who gets to represent whom.